A Wreath of Thistles
by Mara Sevvie
Summary: When you regret something, you haven't necessarily done wrong. You may have simply made a choice that led to an outcome less perfect than you hoped for. Rosalie realizes that the outcome of her life has become defined by her outlook, and finally understands that true happiness isn't about getting what you want, but loving what you have.
1. Chapter 1: Parallels

Disclaimer: I do not own nor make any profit off of _Twilight_. It belongs to Stephenie Meyer and Summit Entertainment, etc. I will not repeat this in subsequent chapters.

A/N: I would apologize for my absence, but seeing as I had no choice in the matter, I am forgoing it. Health concerns have dominated the last few months. It is only in the past couple of weeks that matters were resolved and I was given a clean bill. To say I was ecstatic about the news would be a severe understatement.

I'm now on a writing binge fueled by relief and (against the more rational side of my judgment) I am promising _at least_ _one_ new chapter for the following stories before March ends:

**For a Reason: Inauguration  
**Steps of Peace  
**The Light Within  
**Intangible Sentiment  
**Damages II: Rosalie  
**Invitation To Rise  
**Rousing The Lion

Thank you in advance for sticking around and here (finally) is the companion story that the Christmas season inspired. Back-Story/Companion Piece for _To Hear The Angels_. (I strongly recommend reading that story first.) This is a two-shot, since I found myself writing twice as much as intended.

If this is OOC, then so be it. I like it regardless.

**Chapter 1: Parallels**

* * *

There is a very particular holiday which can hold utterly _no_ place of worth in my mind. No place of warmth or affection. No good memories. Just pain, sadness, and suffering. Losses and mistakes which can never be soothed with any form of healing. A dreaded holiday for its reminders of failure and terror. To add insult to grievous injury, somehow I have been forced into spending extended periods of time near the double beastly banes of my existence, Jacob the Mutt and multiple rings of decorated evergreen on this most despised of holidays.

Christmas.

Yuletide, if one prefers, although I have no preference one way or the other. Regardless the name, the season holds terrible knowledge and presents deep fears that will never truly leave me. _Cannot_ ever leave me. Because of what I am; what I was made and molded into.

I used to hate my creator. Fervently. Unceasingly. Overwhelmingly. Viciously, even. With taunts meant to hurt as badly as I had been hurt by the choice made. Purposeful avoidance and direct obstinacy were the lesser of the evils I presented in my constant black moods.

How that same creator became a protected person in my existence would be anyone's guess. But Carlisle Cullen is not a person that anyone can truly hate without hating themselves even more. A vampire who rises with dignity from the repulsive depths of his own kind, a being who never harms anyone if he can help it, and a person who saves lives by defying the one thing which any other vampire would covet without qualm.

To be sure, my tenacity (or pigheadedness as dear, sweet, know-it-all Edward has occasionally assured everyone) kept me from accepting these facts for some years. Even when I at last regarded them with resignation, nothing could have made me admit them aloud. No matter how much it caused Carlisle pain to face my reticence and antagonistic behavior, I would not be moved. Of course, being such a martyr as he always was, Carlisle would not easily show his pain. It took a great many scrapes with Edward to see the inconspicuous signs our leader displayed without knowing it. Remembering those moments of realization was difficult this many years after the fact, particularly because I still had not come to terms with our relationship.

_Don't you see how he drops his eyes when you look at him like that?_

_Do you honestly think Carlisle is always so quiet when Esme talks about her projects?_

_How many times does he have to wince for you to see your words are making their mark?_

Many more such episodes of Edward's biting reactions sprung to mind, but the point evaporated in the face of my most horrifying task of the season. Admittedly, even worse than acting in any way civil towards the dog of the house. Faced with this task, I could even applaud Bella internally for escaping to her father's house for a few hours. Granted, Charlie and Sue _had_ both been sick for a few days. No doubt Bella felt obligated to take care of her father while his normal caretaker was stuck in La Push fighting her own illness, but I wouldn't have been surprised if Alice's push to help hang decorations wasn't the final motivator. Whatever the reason, Bella was decidedly absent when my feared task came upon me.

Poor Nessie, the little sweetheart, took it into her head that the Cullen home needed Christmas wreaths to add extra festive flavor for its last inhabited holiday season. When Alice tentatively posed the suggestion later, I nearly blew a gasket of inestimable proportions.

Looking at my niece's warm, wondering eyes and seeing the sparkle housed within them cut through every protestation I had mustered. Hardly able to fathom why such a tiny creature could pull my strings so easily, I made the first agreement.

Oh, the _stares_ I received for that. The sudden spotlight, usually so heartily welcomed, wasn't nearly worth the priceless expressions on my family's faces. They all knew exactly why my answer was so strange. Knowing they knew only darkened my outlook on the entire prospect of hanging Christmas wreaths in the house.

But Nessie wanted it. So I did it.

At least… I tried. I tried to hang an elegant ring of green with wine-colored bows and golden apples.

I remembered a wreath like that in my human life. A two weeks before Christmas, it was the first despicable evergreen ring I saw when the man I once dreamed about marrying had ripped off my lovely cream jacket in the snowy streets of Rochester. A monster in the clothing of a man. Tearing away a gift he himself had given out of supposed love.

The burgundy and gold spotted wreath was meant to hang above the fireplace, but it nearly landed in the roaring fire itself due to my shaking hands. A sensation of wanting to deliberately burn the wreath came over me briefly. Nessie couldn't be disappointed, though. I couldn't let her down. Not when my niece was the nearest thing to my own child I would ever have.

The sound of something tearing suddenly sent all heads searching for the unusual noise. Being nearest the sound, I knew exactly what had happened. Edward stood stiffly next to me, where he had been attempting to decorate the mantle, a ripped piece of brilliant red ribbon in his oddly lax hands.

If anyone was confused, they didn't ask questions. After a beat, Esme brought over a new piece and went back to her decorating without a pause, nonverbally indicating to everyone else they should do precisely the same thing. I tried to do so with as much calm as could be mustered, all the while knowing it was my own thoughts which had caused Edward to tear that ribbon.

In spite of my mental cacophony, a gentle hand descended upon the middle of my back. Before I even ascertained for sure who the person accompanying the hand was, I shook it off reflexively. Edward was the nearest and the quickest of the family. I would have heard anyone else move across the room, but Edward didn't have to move anywhere; he was already beside me. It had to have been him and I didn't need his pity.

Why? Why the sudden supportive hand after all these years and after what he had said during my change? Never before had he reassured me like that. For that's what Edward's hand meant. A measure of assurance I could not bring myself to ask anyone for. Not even Emmett. Another moment and I would have asked the mind-reader outright, but he was gone before the words could leave me.

Leaving the stones unturned was quite unlike either of us, yet such a discussion was not fit for the ears of children or unwelcome mutts and there _was_ another blasted wreath to put up. One of three still left in their preservative wrappings. It was my own fault, really. The moment Nessie insisted on having wreaths and passed me those pleading eyes, I volunteered for the entire project; it had always been a one-person job and not difficult in the least. For most people.

Another wreath, this time full of pale blue bows, perfect white doves, and little silver bells, passed into my hands. Nessie certainly didn't care about matching, I thought with bleak fondness. She had never seen so many interesting wreaths as in the specialty shop we visited. Even Alice didn't have the heart to impose her decorating critique upon on the choices made by our excitable little angel.

Looking at the wreath now, I wished she would have.

Royce knocked me to the ground after he tore away my hat. I remembered the feel of the paved street beneath my hip and elbow as I smashed down onto it. Every uneven line in the icy gray street imprinted itself upon my delicate porcelain skin, mixing indiscriminately with the lines of blood trailing the scratches left behind. As I looked up from the cold, wet concrete, the nearest doorway had boasted a wreath so familiar to the one my niece now chose as to be frightening. The bows were a slightly darker blue, the birds a pale gray rather than white, and the bells shining gold… but the general image could not be squashed as I attempted to place the ring of green above the glass doors in the back of the house.

Another rip, another tear, and all turned to find Edward along the front wall, the ribbon in his hands not merely ripped, but now torn into two pieces. His hands no longer lax, but tight, and the stance of his lean body ever firmer. Alice moved on silent feet to extend a new ribbon.

Edward paused… closed his eyes… took a breath… then took the ribbon with stiff movements and turned cautiously back to his work. No one breathed until he did.

The blue and white wreath was hung rapidly after that. Free of the associated memory for the time being, I took out another to hang above the kitchen entryway, and almost screamed with rage. Pine cones and cinnamon sticks hung all over it, miniature red apples and tiny matching bows mixed in for color.

There was a wreath so similar in Rochester. Royce slapped my face to the pavement, I remembered; one of countless times, but emblazoned on hard memory because of the doorway in line of my vision as strained eyes refocused through a blur of blood, sweat, and tears. A green ring wrapped with red ribbon and covered with white-dusted pine cones and a large bundle of cinnamon sticks in the place where a bow would normally hang. The fury and sickness of knowing I would die like humiliated vermin, at the hands of someone I had been so desperate to attach myself to.

Shredding rang in my ears, reverberating with all the pain of my last hours as a human being. Whether the shredding of my wretchedly pretty little dress or of the ribbon in Edward's hands, I could not tell anymore. Memory seeped through every pore of my body, filling every empty space as a deadly toxin in the air.

I was barely aware enough to notice Emmett step forward with atypical silence and understanding to hand over a new length of ribbon, which Edward grasped gently and expertly, as though he had not just torn and shredded three different pieces. Considering the speed with which he applied the colorful décor, I could guess he was leaving for a run. Lucky him, being able to escape my memories when I could not.

"Aunt Rose?"

Snapping from dreadful thoughts as abruptly as a shot from a gun, I turned to look down at Nessie, whose small hand rested tensely against my leg. Her sweet little face scrunched with concern, warm brown eyes darting back towards where her father had just been.

"Yes, Nessie?" I prompted gently, knowing full well she was going to ask an impossible question, but crouching besides her with the intent to listen closely all the same.

"Why is Daddy so upset?" she murmured just loud enough for me to hear.

Breathing became difficult – nigh impossible – to continue processing. While I had known the direction of her thoughts, Nessie's question was now out in the open and needed answering. How to answer, though? With the horrible truths her innocent mind should not have to process? I didn't want my niece growing up afraid. Children deserved security whenever it could be given. Something which Walter and Marian Hale never gave me; not when it meant something in the grand scheme of things.

"He was reminded of something terrible," I answered vaguely, at a loss how to explain without revealing my whole sordid past. "Something that happened a long time ago."

A long time ago indeed – in human terms, at least. A little over seven decades, in fact. How did the time pass so swiftly? At times it seemed as though I was still recovering from the first year of my transformation. Nessie's presence disproved that idea, clearly, but the feelings would always blaze hot and thick whenever I remembered the end of my life as I knew it. The reminders were constant and unchangeable. Just like me.

"What was it?" came the young, naïve question. Little hands twisted several inches of fabric on the shoulders of my blouse, accompanied by a concernedly curious expression. So innocent still, even after what she had witnessed with the Volturi.

"Something that happened to me," I found myself spewing thoughtlessly, moving hurriedly forward in my answer before Nessie could ask further. "I'm not… not ready to talk about it. Can you understand that?"

Gazing up at my tense and guarded expression, Nessie seemed to check off possibilities in her mind, before finally nodding slowly. "Sure, Aunt Rose."

"Thank you, sweetie," I murmured, offering her a tiny smile of reassurance.

"Will Daddy be all right?" the little angel wondered, worry overtaking her again.

"I'm sure he will be," I half-lied, afraid to find the answer to that myself. While Edward had seen my memories of the attack hundreds upon hundreds of times, never had he seen me connect it so vividly to something in our present lives. The difference was startling, even to me.

"I hope so," Nessie sighed, reaching over with a tight hug around my neck that warmed me inside and out. With a slight smile, I suddenly lifted our special girl into the air and carried her away from the last wreath I had hung and the awful memories associated with it, my focus now on Nessie's adorable giggles rather than the single wreath I had not hung or horrors I had once known.

Gratefully, Jacob Black left not long after Bella returned home with the long-suffering expression of one who had fought with a petulant child and lost. Nessie entered into a full giggling fit with every story about her human grandpa's silly, prideful attempts to take care of himself. Charlie Swan was as stubborn as his daughter and clearly much less communicative.

The fly in the ointment following Bella's return was Edward's continued absence. Loath though I was to admit it, I was getting worried about him. He had seen plenty of horror in his long years, to be sure, yet there was something still so… _fragile_ about him. Or perhaps it was just the strict etiquette his human parents taught him long before. Whichever the case, an inexplicable feeling of guilt gnawed at my stomach. Could I have stopped my thoughts from going the way they did? While the larger, more tenacious part of me said no, a tiny conscientious part of me whispered yes. With more difficulty than I had ever encountered, I squashed that tiny voice.

"Maybe I should look for him," Alice suggested for the third time in fifteen minutes from one of the white sofas. She was as nervous as Bella, except my tiny sister didn't have a young daughter upon whom to devote her nervous energy.

"It's been a really long time," Bella agreed in a low murmur from the opposite sofa, worriedly eyeing the sleeping child beside her.

"Edward knows his own mind," Carlisle shook his head negatively from the arm of the same sofa upon which Bella sat. "Believe me, I have known him to be in worse states of mind and behavior than what you've all described. He'll come back when he feels in control of himself."

"And in the meantime worry his wife and daughter to extremes," Bella muttered even quieter, although no real heat entered her tone.

Sighing unhappily, Carlisle did not reply, instead laying a supportive arm around his daughter-in-law. Glancing up apologetically, Bella reached up to grasp the extended arm in gratitude. Their growing bond, while not entirely unexpected, had burgeoned rather suddenly of late. I wasn't entirely certain why, but the change at least took some small amount of pressure off my residual distance – a habit I had long ago failed to break.

"I see him!" Alice jumped up instantly, amazingly keeping her voice low. Jasper stood with her, attempting to contain her excitement with little success.

"Where?" prompted Esme from beside the windows, where she had been keeping an unneeded watch.

"I don't exactly know," came the distant answer, a bit belated and very disappointed. Jasper's hands dropped as the mood lowered. "It's a little wooded area. Still in-state, I think, but I can't pinpoint the precise location. It's an average copse of trees with a little pool of water in the middle. He's just… sitting there."

"So we haven't found him," Bella sighed, closing her eyes and dropping her head back.

"No," was Alice's miserable response as she sat back down beside her husband.

"Figures," Emmett commented irritably from his self-induced watch-post in the back yard. Honestly, I was startled by his reaction. Any other time he would have been swearing up and down that Edward was just chicken about decorating with pretty little ribbons and made a lucky escape. Contrary to this expectation, Emmett looked more depressed than anyone in the room.

Rising from my own seat in one of the chairs, I moved outside to my husband with a tentative air, placing a hand on his bicep comfortingly. While I knew he was close to Edward, it seemed more than the usual funk Emmett engaged in whenever Edward was in a bad mood.

"What is it?" I asked so that only we two could hear.

"Nothing," he shrugged, accidentally knocking my hand away.

"What's gotten you into such a strange mood?" I sighed heavily, leaning my head tiredly against his sturdy shoulder. The entire situation was beginning to exhaust me.

"I said it was nothing," he insisted stubbornly, continuing to stare out at the rich green depths of the woods behind the house. I tried to recollect being shut out by my boyish husband like that, but came up empty-handed. He had never done it before and it hurt to know he wouldn't talk to me.

"Em," I whispered, stung, pulling away in confusion.

Taking one look at my face, Emmett heaved a sigh and wrapped both arms tightly around me. "Sorry. I just don't like what always happens with you and Edward."

"I don't understand," I confessed, still stinging and even more bewildered than ever before.

"I don't know…" Emmett hedged, searching for the words to match his feelings. "I mean, you were obviously remembering _that_ night, and it was bugging you both, but you…"

Grasping in vain for words and unable to find the ones he wanted, Emmett groaned frustratedly. "I can't even say it right, Rose. You're going to take it the wrong way."

"Take _what_ the wrong way?" I questioned, growing agitated and pulling back from his embrace enough to glare mildly up at him. "You haven't even told me anything!"

Emmett inhaled as though to take the plunge over a cliff, and plowed quickly through before I could interrupt, "It's just that every time you think about _that_, you and Edward both get upset, and then he almost reaches out like he wants to help you and take your mind off it, but then he pulls back like he got burned and you act like you didn't know he was trying to do it. And today it made me kind of mad because he finally _did_ reach out and try to comfort you, but you still just shook it off and so he backed away all depressed because he thought it didn't matter to you. And he keeps thinking it's his fault that he can't connect with you, because he _always_ blames himself and _you_ always blame him, too. Sometimes you blame him for the stupidest things. I love you, Rosalie, I really do, but sometimes you can drive me nuts with the way you act about Edward. After all this time, I still can't understand why you act like he's such a bad guy. Edward's as much my brother as if we'd been born that way. I don't want to avoid him because you're mad at him, but if I didn't you'd be mad at me, too. I'd just like to be able to have the two of you in my life together – at the same time – without having to be a referee or choose between you. Because we both know I'm always going to choose you. It'd be wrong if I didn't, because you're my wife and I promised to support you before anyone else. I'm keeping that promise, but honestly, Rose, it gets old when Edward isn't doing anything except breathing in a way you don't like."

If my mouth had a hinge, it would most likely have snapped off with the force and speed at which my lower lip dropped away from the upper. Emmett had never, ever, in his entire existence as a Cullen, made such an enormous speech. Neither had he ever directly stated his feelings to be against mine. I always knew he disliked the times when Edward and I were at odds, but to hear him burst with feelings he'd kept pent up for an obviously long amount of time was shocking. Imagining Emmett Cullen thinking rationally and talking about his feelings in this way never entered my mind.

What bothered me most was how I had entertained the same idiotic delusions about Emmett that thousands of other people had over the years. Big, silly, tactless, and ignorant of the more sensitive things in life like emotions and fair play. When this unfortunate illusion overtook me, I hated to think. Emmett deserved better than that from his own wife.

Despite my guilt on that subject, Emmett opened a can of worms I was not ready examine now, if ever. Even after Bella had cleared some of the cobwebs away during her enforced slumber party years ago, I still believed in Edward's dismissal of me; he proved it everyday, after all.

"We don't get along and we never will," I refuted simply, recognizing the weakness in my own argument, but unwilling to bend.

"You guys would get along just fine if one of you would stop being so sensitive to each other," Emmett argued back for once, a frown overtaking a face that normally grinned and sparkled with dimples. "The problem is you're both so similar and so you both snap out of self-defense and you both get so hurt by it, but neither of you wants to admit it to anyone – especially not each other. Really, though, you snap at Edward a lot more than he snaps at you. I know you've always had a protective wall around you, Rose, but the way you lash out at him is way over the line most of the time. What did he ever do to you?"

Frozen by the accusations, and frustratingly unwilling or unable to tell him exactly what Edward had done to start our relationship of discord, I just turned away, infuriated that even Emmett couldn't side with me on this.

Another heavy sigh escaped from behind me and Emmett merely said, "I knew this would happen."

The sound of his fading footsteps was the last thing I heard for some time as I stood staring out at the tall, silent trees until dawn encroached with a splendor of color and light. No one in the house moved any more than I did, until Nessie began to stir. Her worry was immediate as she realized she and Bella had never gone back to the cottage, and her father still hadn't returned.

Remarkably, Emmett's words had become engraved on my mind throughout my silent vigil. Was all he said really true? I didn't want to think so, but being called out by my own husband was too close to home for me to ignore very long. Impossible though it felt, I was forced to concede upon three major points.

Firstly, Edward and I were similar like Emmett said. Too similar to argue and not lead to a complete explosion. We grated on each other thanks to our easily-triggered tempers and our instinctive ability to cut deeply with words and accusations.

Secondly, I admitted to myself how I made Emmett pick sides in those grating explosions. I wanted – no, expected – someone to be on my side, no matter if I was right or wrong. Just as a matter of course.

Last, and hardest of all to admit… I _was_ the one to start most of the spats with Edward. He got on my nerves, and made snide remarks, and made fun of my vanity, and I made fun of his old-fashioned code of honor, and…

Thinking over our relationship more completely than I ever had, Edward suddenly reminded me strongly of my human brothers.

As much as I called Edward and Jasper brother, I had never forgotten the love I once felt towards my biological baby brothers. Jasper had always appeared the older brother, protecting and guiding, but Edward was truly like my little brothers in so many ways. Even years after their memory had faded almost completely from my mind, I could recall our relationship being something like what I had with Edward currently, only kinder and more affectionate.

For the first time in years, I realized one of the key reasons I could never allow myself to be real friends with Edward, let alone true brother and sister. Because being close with him felt like betraying the blood brothers of my human life. How long I had felt that way wasn't even clear. The thoughts never coalesced solidly in my entire vampire existence until Emmett's words shook me up so thoroughly.

Now the trouble was determining if I could move past that. I didn't want to; leaving one of the few happy, albeit hazy, memories I had left was not at the top of my to-do list. Still, Edward deserved an explanation at least. I could clear the air if nothing else, and hope that would make Emmett feel a little better. Hardly thinking my plans through, I hurried mindlessly around the house and ran off in the direction Edward's fading trail indicated. For a brief moment I wondered at all of our stupidity for not doing this sooner. Worry certainly clouded the mind in exponential ways.

Afterward followed a very random path that proved how mindless Edward's run had been. A need to get away and think, more than a desire to be alone. Regardless the unprecedented journey taken, it was no hardship to finally find him, sitting at small pool in the middle of a typical forest clearing, just as Alice had said.

* * *

A/N: I'm not entirely sure how this wound up going the way it has, but I had to write it.

I know that Rosalie says in _Eclipse _that her wedding was in April, but I'm using some creative license here.

Please review!


	2. Chapter 2: Gestures

A/N: Thank you in advance for sticking around and here (finally) is the companion story that the Christmas season inspired. Back-Story/Companion Piece for To Hear The Angels. (I strongly recommend reading that story first.) This is a two-shot, since I found myself writing twice as much as intended.

**Chapter 2: Gestures**

* * *

"I'm shocked Alice wasn't the one to come find me," came Edward's morose yet sarcastic remark. He didn't even turn around.

"No need," he pointed out in reply to my thought, turning dourer than before and slouching uncharacteristically. "I'm sure you'll just call me an idiot, tell me to get home before I worry everyone more than I already have, and then run back knowing you've done a service to the family."

"You _are_ an idiot," was my cool retort, but I didn't feel the remark as keenly as I normally did. Emmett's words were still running circles in my subconscious, dampening every rude thought or gesture I might typically have given Edward.

"Emmett finally snapped, I see," he murmured, much subdued. A tilt of his head displayed his disappointment. "I'd hoped he would never have to do that."

"You knew," I responded blandly, blinking away my surprise. In lieu of a reply, Edward just tapped his head deprecatingly.

Right. Mind-reader.

"How long has he been waiting to say all that?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

A pause stole over us, Edward fidgeting unnecessarily until he finally answered, "Decades."

Breath whooshed out of my lungs at this announcement. "He's been upset this long and never let it show? Never once let anyone see how it bothered him?"

"He tries to be the strong one for you, but it hurts him that... well, that you can't let go of your unhappiness to focus on the present with him." Edward shrugged awkwardly, allowing the knowledge to linger in the atmosphere, and I suddenly remembered Bella's words the night I had told her my story.

"_He doesn't like to tell other people's stories – he feels like he's betraying confidences, because he hears so much more than just the parts they mean for him to hear."_

"Told you that, did she?" Edward smiled fondly at the thought of his wife.

"She did," I nodded unnecessarily, shifting weight to the opposite foot as I thought over that conversation again. With all of my harsh interactions to and about Bella, Edward still had been kinder to me than I deserved. He had kept his word, as promised, and after finding out, I started acting kinder towards him. So why, after I had started feeling congenial, did I go back to hating him like I used to?

"Renesmee," Edward whispered, pain in every syllable as he turned away from me to stare at the water.

Staring at his lanky form, curled into itself on a cluster of rocks, it occurred to me how lonely he looked. A wife, daughter, parents, and siblings were all waiting back home for him, worried sick about his welfare, yet still he seemed so alone. Out of character entirely, I felt sorry for him. And I recognized that Renesmee was no longer an issue of contempt between us. The issue was, as I determined before searching out Edward, something I'd never even understood in my own mind.

"Why are you choosing to be alone?" I asked, some distant and deeply buried part of me already keenly aware.

"I could ask you the same thing," Edward replied with a deep sigh. "But I can only guess you'd become angry with me again and we'd argue. We always argue. Always about ridiculous things that neither of us can change. But it doesn't stop us from arguing again and again."

Edward's resignation toward my feelings and the status of our relationship began to tip the scales in favor of a change I wasn't ready to encounter. But there was nothing left to wait for. My human brothers had been dead for twenty and thirty years; one due to alcoholism and one due to cancer. Even if they still lived, the two of them would certainly not be capable of feeling betrayed by a sister they believed dead for almost eighty years.

"Is _that_ what this is about?" Edward exclaimed, surprise splashed over his lean face when he whipped around to gaze on me. "Rosalie, you know I would never try and replace—"

"I know," I cut in before he could continue. "Really. I didn't even know this was a problem for me until today."

Intuitively knowing it would be impossible to forge ahead in our lives with the same old biting and scratching of the past, I inhaled a long, slow breath and moved uncomfortably to sit beside Edward on the rocks. Trying to find words became a daunting task, drawing the silence until the plain facts of the day slipped out suddenly.

"I found myself comparing you to my human brothers," was my abrupt admission. "I used to argue with them all the time too. Only it wasn't so hurtful. It wasn't an argument meant to wound. Just to tease, to make fun. But you and I… it's not a little game. It's always been a brutal war. Emmett was right. We're too similar and fight the same way. We scrape so badly on each other that it gets out of hand. When one of us tries to make a point, the other takes it immediately as an insult. I hate to admit it, but it's usually me. I just… always thought you hated me, resented me even. The way you talked about me when I was nearly through the transformation…"

"I never hated you, even on your blackest days," Edward sighed again, running frustrated hands through his hair for what looked to be the hundredth time that day. "I hated what those animals had done to you. I hated that our family could have been exposed if anyone recognized you. Admittedly, I got heartily sick of your vanity once the change was over…"

A twitch of his lip let me know he was partly joking, and my instinctively tense posture relaxed immediately.

Breathing deeply, Edward went on, "I've never been very good with niceties. Manners, yes, but not the sensitivity and compassion that comes so naturally to Carlisle and Esme. I wish I did. Maybe I could have been a better – I don't know – friend, brother, confidant? Someone who could use this ability to show you support when you needed it most? Instead I got annoyed with your constant complaining, despite the fact you had a right to it."

"Why?" I wondered coldly, trying not to overreact and failing miserably.

"Mostly because I didn't know _how_ to help you," he confessed quietly. "Helping you through your feelings was a scary thought. Still is, if I'm honest. But with Bella I had to learn patience and get over that fear. Maybe I'm not totally fixed, but I like to think I'm improving."

"You are," I admitted simply, unable to stop staring at this different man, my coldness melting away. "I would never have believed we'd be talking like this. Trying to understand, rather than insult."

"I think the underworld might have frozen over, don't you?" Edward grinned slightly, the expression transforming his features into the happy, hopeful man he had become since Renesmee's birth. A grin ghosted across my own face before I could stop it.

"It might have," I murmured, amazed by the two foremost feelings beginning to flow through me. Hope? Happiness? Although I could hardly believe it, I truly felt them. Not a cheap imitation, nor wishful thinking. This was the real thing.

In letting go of my human brothers, I started to understand what Emmett wanted. What everyone always hoped I could do. All of my family had unhappy histories somehow. Emmett was dying slowly and painfully when I'd found him and was forced to give up the loving family he already had. Esme had been oppressed by her parents, brutally abused by her own husband, and lost her precious baby. Jasper was on the losing side of a war, forced to join the killing machine Maria molded, constantly depressed by the emotions of those he found sustenance from, and then spent years alone because of his ability. Poor little Alice was placed in an institution that tortured its patients rather than healed them. Although it had never been expressly stated, Carlisle was no doubt abused by his father for being less than the paragon of hypocritical virtue, and then spent centuries wandering, alone despite the many friends he made during his travels. Edward, though I little thought about it over the years, had lost both his father and beloved mother by the time he was dying; his death was a slow, painful one just as mine had been. Years of believing himself a monster and choosing the lifestyle to support that theory had done nothing but hurt him.

My own fiancé had assaulted and killed me. My life and death was a sick, horrible experience and no one deserved it. But was it so much worse than the experiences of my current family? They had faced horrors as well, and while it seemed against all my natural personality traits to not see myself as superior, it had to be done.

Edward was right. We both chose to be alone at times when we needn't be. Neither of us had the ability to change what happened to us in the past, nor the decisions we made before. Focusing on the past as I did, no true happiness or peace would ever come to me. I could make myself feel those things, though. For Emmett, who always worked so hard to make me as happy as he could in spite of my constant refusal to allow complete joy in my life.

"I hope this time, I can be more helpful," Edward commented kindly. "Perhaps we can be friends of a sort after all this time. If you want to."

"I don't want that," I said evenly, not even thinking it through.

The look of hurt on Edward's face, though carefully hidden, made me feel bad. I should have chosen my words more carefully before I spoke.

"I mean I want to be brother and sister, Edward," I corrected more gently than I'd ever done. "Genuinely brother and sister, and not an imitation for public consumption. It'll take a lot of work, but… I think you're worth it."

A slow smile spread across his face, reminiscent of the sunrise brightening the world around it. No wonder Bella was dazzled when her husband grinned.

Edward laughed out loud at the thought and the only response I could think of was giving him a hug. The first to ever occur in our long acquaintance.

"Let's go home," I told him comfortably, not taking it personally when he still hadn't hugged me back. It was shock, plain and simple. "They may not be worried anymore, what with Alice so anxious and watching out for you, but then that's normal."

We snorted together, sharing a conspiratorial look, and ran home side-by-side in pleasant silence.

Coming home at peace with both myself and Edward was a strange thing. It affected everything I did, everything I felt. Every time I looked at something in the house, a sense of home would wash over me.

"You're… different," Emmett told me quietly in the confines of our room days afterward. It was Christmas Eve and I was almost ready for Alice's picture event of the year. As I peacefully brushed my hair at the vanity, two sets of golden eyes met in the mirror and I smiled at my husband for diligently noticing the changes in me.

"I know," was all I could think to say.

"Edward, too," he remarked suspiciously, shoving both hands into his pockets in a boyish pose I was starting to adore. Head tilted, shoulders rolled back, and rocking back and forth on his heels.

"I know," I repeated amusedly.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Emmett sighed, humor bleeding through the annoyance.

"Let's just say… you won't have to choose between us anymore," I settled on.

"I can handle that," he grinned a little at me, and I cheered the return of his beautiful dimples. They'd been missing for too long. "I'll wait downstairs."

He'd reached the door when I found the courage to ask a question I'd been hesitating to put out there over the years. "Emmett?"

"Yeah?" he stopped, turning to look over his shoulder curiously.

"Why do you never walk down _with_ me?" I forced out, slightly embarrassed yet confused nonetheless.

Taken aback at the vague feeling of hurt I tried to hide, Emmett came back to the vanity at top speed, crouching beside me and taking my hands in his.

"I love seeing you glide into the room," he confessed with atypical bashfulness. "You always look like a queen floating down the stairs. I'd hate to miss that."

A warm, sweet emotion rose up inside of me that I always felt whenever Emmett became sentimental. The rarity of his emotional side was such that I treasured the times he indulged it. Instinct pushed me to hug my greatest gift tightly.

"Em," was my hesitant beginning as I pulled away. "I, um… I wanted to… apologize. For not … for not being satisfied with what we have. All these years I only thought about what I didn't have. Never thinking about what that made you feel like. And I'm sorry."

"If Edward spilled the beans on me…" Emmett threatened, a disgruntled look overcoming his face.

"Then he obviously cares about his brother and wants the best for him," I cut in firmly, drawing a surprised expression from my husband. "You wanted to stop choosing between us, and you can. But that also means I'm not always going to automatically go against Edward, either. I'm glad he told me. It made me see what I was missing."

"Maybe I don't like this new change," Emmett said with mocking caution.

"You'd better," was my challenge, only half joking. "I don't want to go back to what I did before. That way was lonely and painful. I kept myself in a dark place for too long."

Solemnity overtook Emmett immediately, and he hugged me again. "I didn't mean it, baby. As long as you're happy, I'm happy."

"I love you," I told him seriously, pulling back for a long kiss before I pushed him towards the door. "Go on. I'll only be a few minutes."

Bestowing a tender kiss to the top of my head, Emmett disappeared from sight. His booming laugh echoed through the house not a second later and I smiled, hurrying searching out a suitable necklace to match my Christmas dress and get me downstairs to Emmett and my family.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed in the selection I had. Frustration crept over me as I tried on every piece in my extensive collection without success. Nothing matched; something about each piece was just… off. It was ridiculous that I could have bought so much jewelry and nothing matched one, lone outfit. Tossing the last of the necklaces down on the table with a little more force than necessary, I sat with folded arms and glared at the offending mass of jewelry.

After a minute or two of useless anger, I stood in a huff and decided I would have to go down without. Sighing, I almost turned towards the door when something sparkling descended in front of my face. A startled gasp flew from my lips as I found my eyes drawn to the mirror and the image of my brother, wearing a dark gray dress shirt and black tie and slacks.

"Edward?" I wondered in bewilderment, only looking down from his eyes when he gestured. Glancing down, I was entirely startled to find a necklace hanging from his fingers before my throat. A delicate gold chain boasted two rectangular, wine-colored gems with four rounded gems of the same color hung in a cluster from the chain, tiny diamonds in the style of leaves surrounding them. It was exceptionally elegant and matched ever so perfectly. Yet there was one little catch to this lovely little gesture.

"Wasn't this…?" I trailed off tentatively, remembering the necklace in a picture Esme had taken years earlier for Edward to catalogue the small collection of Elizabeth Masen's jewelry.

"It was," he nodded once, trying to read the jumble of thoughts in my head and the conflicting emotions in my eyes. "This is probably quite a surprise. I know I've never…"

The fact went unspoken that while Edward had generously and lovingly given Esme and Alice several pieces of his biological mother's jewelry, I had never been a recipient of even one. Not that this was a surprise, considering our relationship for the past seventy-odd years, but the awkward feeling of this new and unusual situation would not go away.

"If you don't want it, I understand," he murmured sincerely, nearly pulling away when I reached up to grasp his hands, holding the necklace suspended above my collar bone.

"Thank you for letting me borrow it," I told him with genuine gratitude.

Silence, thick and uncomfortable, spread between us like heavy snowfall. Just when I thought he wasn't intending to speak again, he murmured tentatively, "Rose… it's not a loan."

I froze in the middle of pulling my hands away, searching out his eyes to see the sentiment therein. Honest affection gazed back at me, the kind I only started to see after the reconciliation we had enacted a week or so earlier.

"I can't keep this," I whispered, doggedly trying to ignore the growing emotion I felt.

"I want you to," Edward smiled understandingly. Another beat passed in which our eyes remained connected. I tried to find a chink somewhere in his emotion. Surely… surely it was merely that he felt badly for never doing it before? Even if it wasn't entirely his fault? That had to be it. Guilt.

"It's not guilt," he countered gently. "Although I do regret we were so distant as to prevent this ever happening before."

"I don't see the difference," I remarked unhappily, a frown creasing my face.

"Guilt, in my experience, is a bit more… unshakeable," he responded thoughtfully. "It incurs an obligation to repay what one has done wrong. When you regret something, you haven't necessarily done _wrong_, although that can be case at times. You may have simply made a choice that led to a different outcome. Not a bad outcome, per se, but one that was less perfect than you hoped for upon hindsight. I think that's how I feel about us. We didn't precisely do wrong. We still called each other family and we would protect each other, but the relationship wasn't as supportive as we now wish it had been. And rather than making up for a wrong I did against you, I'm trying to create a better outcome for the next seventy-odd years of our lives."

To that, I could find no adequate words. Edward had outlined a philosophy of life I had never bothered to understand. The past was behind us and it would never change, regardless what we did or said, no matter how we lashed out or called it unfair. Hope for the future was all we could work towards. Our family had a way of doing that. Maybe that was why we all fit together.

Feeling a hitherto unknown surge of fondness for my brother, I simply asked, "Will you put it on for me?"

Smiling, Edward pulled the necklace into place and clasped the hook. Yes, it was perfect. But not just for its color. The gesture it represented meant even more to me than its beauty.

"Walk me down?" I suggested, rather than ordered as I once might have done.

Edward grinned mischievously, stretching his arm out to me. "Emmett will be disappointed. He was expecting a good, clear view of his queen."

"I think he'll be more pleased with the view he's going to get now," I countered seriously, taking the proffered arm firmly.

"Maybe you're right," Edward agreed, grin softening into a serene smile as we walked down to the rest of our family, the sound of Carlisle singing a soft Christmas carol becoming clearer every step we took.

Emmett's face proved me correct the instant he spotted us; the content expression on his adult features melted into one of boyish glee with a wide grin, sparkling eyes, and brilliant dimples. Dressed in sleek black silk, Esme matched his happiness to the letter, and had I not known it to be impossible, I would have said she was in tears. Alice was still prepping the fireplace for our photo, but from her excitable movements I knew she had to be grinning like mad. Hence why Jasper looked so awkwardly cheerful, I suspected.

Carlisle's singing stopped when Nessie waved to us, and an odd, sentimental look entered our leader's eyes as he took in the comfortable change. I stared for as long as I could at those eyes, memorizing the emotion in them and trying desperately to put a name to it. I only knew he often wore it when he looked at all of us. It wasn't love, which I frequently saw as well, but when Carlisle had love in his gaze, the unnamed emotion tied in so closely that it was nearly interchangeable. Like he could not love us without also feeling that unknown sentiment.

My musings came to a halt when Emmett reached out to squeeze Edward and me into the same bear hug.

"It's about time," he commented quietly, humor clear in his tone, before pulling away with me still wrapped in one arm. Edward just grinned and gave Emmett a brotherly slap on the shoulder as he moved to embrace his waiting wife in her pale gray cocktail dress.

"All right, we're set!" Alice called out, sing-song in her joy as she began to place the family.

An hour (and fifty or more pictures) later, Emmett and Jasper were in such a good mood that they agreed on a wrestling match. More amazing was the fact that Alice was in such a good mood as to allow it in their nice clothes. Granted, they would never again wear those outfits, but my sister rarely felt so charitable.

Bella, Alice, and Esme had moved to the piano in order to watch Edward teach Nessie a Christmas duet. Pleasant and entertaining as my brother's abnormally patient demeanor was, my eyes slipped away to wander the room in search of the last member of our family. Only thanks to the open door at the back of the house did I locate Carlisle, who was watching everyone discreetly from the back yard, that same look in his eyes. Love and something else, that inexplicable something I couldn't help wondering about. Determining my presence was not expressly required either at the piano or out front with the wrestling match, I made my way outside.

"You look like a stalker," I murmured flatly as I came up next to him. Glancing over and gauging my expression, Carlisle finally pursed his lips in a semblance of a smile.

"I feared as much," he admitted with mild amusement, glancing back once when Nessie's giggles rang out. She had made a mistake, and even as I watched, Edward corrected her with the greatest of patience. Once more, I watched Carlisle's eyes melt into the mixture of love and unknown.

"Why do you look at us like that?"

I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, disliking the way Carlisle winced as inconspicuously as he could.

"That wasn't what I meant," I hurriedly moved to correct my mistake. "I meant… I've just seen that look in your eyes thousands of times and I've never been able to label it. I don't know why it's been nagging at me so much tonight."

He chuckled awkwardly, turning to face me completely. "I thought you would be inside watching Renesmee learn to play."

I shrugged lightly. "I thought you would be, too."

"I suppose I should be," he confessed reluctantly.

"What's stopping you?" I asked plainly, not exactly expecting a straight answer.

"I'm… not precisely certain," was the surprisingly honest admission. After a pensive pause, he went on, "Perhaps because I spent a great deal of my three-hundred-plus years doing just this."

"Doing what?" I inquired, confused.

"Watching," he responded thoughtfully. "Observing..."

He didn't seem inclined to go on, but I found I couldn't let it go. Like the unnamed emotion in his eyes, it nagged at me. "Why?"

"I could do nothing else," he said matter-of-factly. "I could not become involved in the lives of those around me. So I merely observed them when I was with them or when I saw them in the streets."

The idea didn't make much sense to me. I just couldn't see what would be so interesting about strangers he'd never met. "Why would you _want_ to observe them?"

Carlisle blinked wonderingly, seeming to find as little comprehension in my words as I found in his. "Because I wondered what it was like to be them. To lead lives with a wife and family, to have friends who come to call, to have someone sharing life with me. That is why."

A part of me that had long been incapable of warming completely to my creator, seemed to crack with Carlisle's confession. So blunt, so forthright, so completely unaware of the harsh loneliness in his own words. Carlisle, like Edward and me, had been choosing a life alone. His aloneness had become such an ingrained part of his character that even after gaining a beloved wife and family, he could not let go of those habits which betrayed the truth of his lonely lifetime.

Suddenly I felt so terribly sick.

Sick because the one man I had hated for so long was a man who had felt little else from the world for a very long time. My hatred hurt him, but he accepted it as the way things had to be.

"What does that look in your eyes mean?" I found the courage to speak at last.

"I don't know what you saw in my eyes, Rosalie," he sighed slightly.

"When you look at us," I pressed, "when you looked at Edward and Nessie just now… what did you feel? I know you felt love, but what goes with it? Why do you look so—"

The words ended as abruptly as my throat closed up.

I knew.

I knew what that look meant. It had come so naturally, so simply, that I could hardly fathom not having known it instantly.

"Rosalie?" Carlisle's voice interceded, bringing me back to myself with twice as sick a feeling as had passed through me a moment before. "What is it?"

"Grateful," I completed the thought weakly. "You're… grateful."

"Of course I am," he agreed confusedly. "It's a blessing to have all of you."

"But you… It's like you can't separate love and gratitude," I continued in that same weak vein.

"That is a given," he chuckled gently. "I love you. Every one of you. Whenever I think of that, I can't help but be grateful that I _have_ someone to love."

All the years I had spent dreaming of something I could never have came rushing back into my mind, flooding me with rare, deep-seated guilt. Edward was not entirely right. I _had_ done something wrong. I had taken for granted the people who loved me in spite of myself.

"Grandpa! Aunt Rose!" Nessie called out excitedly, inadvertently preventing any further discussion and forcing my emotions into lockdown. "Daddy and Uncle Emmett are going to wrestle!"

Why Nessie loved watching this particular spectacle was beyond anybody's understanding. The only thing we had been able to guess was that she loved to see her father acting so carefree and youthful as he did when horsing around with Emmett. Just as she had loved watching Bella crush rocks into dust.

Carlisle was already chuckling to himself, knowing the outcome before the fight even started.

"Come on, you two!" Esme called out, a hint of a command in her warm voice. "We're waiting for you."

"Coming," I called back absently, moving to the doors before thinking it through. Only once I realized Carlisle was not following did I stop and look back. In a split second of thought, watching him as he had watched so many others, I recognized that I had still been holding onto something from the past.

I'd been holding onto the idea that Carlisle was at fault for the end of my human life because he made me into something else entirely. The truth was, Carlisle saved me from the very fate I cursed in my last hours in the streets of Rochester. Had Royce's villainy played out to the very end, my family would have found my body used and mutilated in the road and never realized who the perpetrators were. I would have become a statistic without a solution and Royce King and his friends would have continued to hurt others in their drunken hazes. More women would have become casualties of that undeserved brutality. Who knew how many came before me? I shuddered to think of it.

Carlisle may have thought he only saved _me_, but by unknowingly allowing me the chance to rid the world of Royce King and his foul companions, he also saved innocent women he didn't even know.

I wondered if I was meant to be a vampire, after all; to take out the threat which almost killed me and live on when that sadistic beast was long dead. That was the ultimate triumph, really. To keep living and being happy when Royce might have left me broken forever. Carlisle had tried to tell me something of the kind before, but in my unwillingness to accept him I had ignored his wisdom. Now I could see the truth of it.

Perhaps that was what Carlisle saw when he looked at us. When he found me in the street long ago, perhaps he saw hope. A hope he continued to see, even when I was too blinded by anger to see it myself.

"Come on, guys!" Bella called humorously from the front yard. "Renesmee is bouncing off the trees out here!"

Carlisle was still staring thought the glass, love and gratitude shining in his gaze. We were so close yet so far apart. Not separated by feet and inches, but by centuries of isolation and decades of bitterness. If Carlisle even knew how to cross that chasm, he couldn't do it alone.

"Carlisle? Are you coming?"

For a moment he didn't seem to hear, brows furrowing with wistful expectations. It took a lot of courage and a very deep breath for me to say what I did next, but I knew it was a step in the right direction.

"Dad."

At that he froze, breathing stopped entirely. In disbelief, he slowly turned to me, blinking away a look of sleepy confusion as he whispered, "What did you say?"

More confident than a moment before, I answered, "You know what I said."

"Rosalie…" he tried to speak, but came up empty-handed. His eyes, so clear and pure gold, turned glassy.

"It's Rose," I corrected him more firmly, stretching my hand out to him. "Come on. They're waiting for us."

"I was going to…" he made to explain, gesturing at empty air, but still words eluded him.

"Stop _watching_ the people around you and start _being_ one of them," I murmured fervently. "You have a wife and a family. You have friends who come to call. You have people to share your life with. You don't have to wonder now."

Carlisle swallowed hard, eyeing my hand as though it were the last foothold on the mountain and he wasn't certain he could reach that far after how long he had been fighting his way to the top.

"I don't want my dad to be alone," I murmured.

Inhaling sharply, at last he reached forward to grasp my outstretched fingers. Without warning he pulled me by the hand into the circle of his arms.

"Thank you," he whispered against my head, holding me tightly for a long moment. Only Emmett's impatient voice broke us apart.

"All right, that's too much!" he shouted. "First Edward, now Carlisle! Next you'll be giving Jazz a bear hug! Why am I not getting anything sappy, huh?"

Snorting, I pulled back from the embrace with a roll of my eyes. Laughter bubbled up in Carlisle as we headed up front at a normal human pace.

We'd almost reached the front door when one last topic came to mind. An idea that started swimming in my mind during our family portrait.

"By the way," I remarked casually, reaching for the door handle, "I'm going to need a new birth certificate."

"What for?" Carlisle wondered curiously, beating me to the handle and holding open the door.

Smiling at his ingrained gentlemanly mannerisms, I answered, "Our wedding in March."

"Oh, Nessie can be the flower girl!" Esme exclaimed happily.

Alice and Nessie positively shrieked together at the announcement, leaving Bella wincing between them at the volume.

Emmett grinned excitedly. "I had Edward and Jasper as best man the last two weddings. You up for it this time, Carlisle?"

"He can't," I cut in immediately. The excitement died as quickly as it came, though Edward's eyes sparkled with humor as he read my intentions.

"Why not?" Emmett asked, seeming to prepare himself for a fight.

"He'll be too busy walking me down the aisle," I stated confidently, realizing too late how demanding that sounded. Looking over at Carlisle, I continued hesitantly, "Um, that is… if you… want to?"

He smiled widely.

"I would be honored."

* * *

A/N: Here's to getting back in the swing of things. :)

Please review!


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